Artkansas 

It's cool to see a TV show where the lead character rides a bike to get around.

In Buddha in Suburbia, not only is his bicycling merely how he gets around, but he's cool and has a girlfriend.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105963/

And it's got a pretty good soundtrack with David Bowie.

gerv 

Sounds like a great series. I wonder if Netflix has it? (site seems down here; perhaps due to the tornado outside... or perhaps Comcast has convinced the UN to perform a no-fly zone over their servers)

Smallwheels

The USA Network TV show "Fairly Legal" has the main character getting around San Francisco using mass transit and taxi cabs. Though since the first episode it is mostly cabs.

Roody

There's a tornado outside and you're worried about some stupid TV show?

oban_kobi

Artkansas 

Of course. I always watch TV when there are tornadoes close by. They can track those suckers almost block by block. I even leave the TV on when I jump into the closet with my flashlight and battery-powered radio.

Roody

We're having thunder snow right now! It's been snowing hard for about an hour. I saw the first lightening flash and thought it was an explosion until I heard the thunder. Freaky!!

wahoonc

TV is the best way to track tornadoes, besides in that part of the Midwest you can usually see them coming...

Aaron

Roody

We got about 10 inches of snow last night, and now it's starting up again. At least the thunder has stopped, and snow is better than a tornado, IMO.

wahoonc

I won't tell you we had temps near 80* and everything is in bloom...

Aaron

Smallwheels

The most snow I've seen in twenty-four hours is about six inches. Montana might be very cold, but the lower levels of the state don't get too much precipitation. The yearly average for snow is forty-five inches and the yearly average for rainfall is just eleven inches. In five years I've only heard two thunderstorms and they were very mild and brief.

When I lived in Los Angeles in 1997, one of the rainiest years there, I didn't experience any thunder at all.

Roody

Thanks for not telling me that!

Roody

We usually get some snowfall even in April, but rarely a major "snow event" like the last 24 hours--especially with the freaky thunder and lightening that went on for much of the night. I think we got almost a foot of heavy wet snow in about 12 hours, then a couple more inches this afternoon. It's supposed to go down to 10*F tonight, with 30 mph winds. It's a great night for a bike ride, but unfortunately the bike I keep up here has a bad bearing.

I'm in Traverse City right now, visiting my sister. I was supposed to take the bus home today, but I doubted that I could make my connection in Grand Rapids so I decided to stay an extra day. I remember driving up here years ago--I'm so glad that I got smart and started taking the bus.

I used to be a good winter driver, but I've lost the touch due to lack of practice. The last time I drove in snow I got stuck and some firemen who happened to be on the spot got me unstuck.

gerv 

Yes... exactly! I hear the sirens going off and immediately turn on Channel 8 to see what's going on. Of course, I have a TV in the basement.

gerv 

By the way, Netflix does have that series. Although the series seems a little old, so don't expect a fine show of modern derailleurs. It's probably all friction shifting.

wahoonc

When I was in Iowa City we all went out in the parking lot to watch the shelf cloud roll in. Pretty awesome sight. However I was smart and checked the radar, all the tornado activity was passing well to the south of us. They have a sirens and apparently the ability to make announcements over the warning system, at least in the part of town I was staying in.

Aaron

Roody

Another thing that's useful is the real-time radar maps you can get on your cell phone. They make it easier to figure out what you should do if you're 20 miles from home and a storm whips up.

Artkansas 

Yeah, I've commuted home with the tornado sirens wailing for half the trip. It's pretty trippy because you can sense in 3 dimensions where each one is as you roll along.

Artkansas 

Some of my favorite bikes have friction shifters.

gerv 

Sorry... my feeble attempt at humour. Yes I like friction shifting too.. and I like it on the down tube. My shifts don't need to be that crisp; I just keep my hand on the shifter until it feels right. Actually, whenever I have to replace a shifter, I usually move to friction. It's so easy to install.

Artkansas 

I took it as humor.

Standalone 

I'm TV free, but car lite...

Artkansas 

I'm car free, but TV lite. I only get 3 channels and one of those is retro tv. Sadly, most of the time it is a better choice than ABC or CBS.

wahoonc

I have a TV and it reminds me too much of the old Bruce Springsteen song...57 Channels and Nothing On. I watch a limited number of shows on History, Discovery and one or two other channels. My television watching is probably less than 4 hours a week. However internet surfing...

Aaron

Standalone 

internet surfing is good mental downtime, and one is exposed a little less to the whole lowest-common-denominator entertainment and advertising. But the "history" and "science" on the History ad Discovery channels leaves much to be desired.